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In Depth

Questions abound, one year after Turkey's coup that wasn't

As Turkey marks one year after the coup attempt, much remains obscured about what exactly happened on July 15, 2016. Some of the questions go right to the highest level.

"Madness," "terror attack," "controlled coup attempt." These are a few of the expressions used by Turkish politicians to explain what happened in Turkey on July 15 2016, when a faction within the Turkish military tried to overthrow the ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party) government, which has held power since 2002.

The night of July 15 saw Istanbul's landmark Bosphorus Bridge become a scene of confrontation, with the Turkish parliament being hit by war planes and Turkey's state TV reading a coup statement. The past year has seen increasing crackdowns on personal freedoms, blame thrown at various actors, and massive purges of public employees in several sectors. Yet what precisely happened behind closed doors before tanks and soldiers flooded the streets remains a mystery.

On the day of the coup attempt, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was in a hotel in the Mediterranean coastal city of Marmaris. He left the hotel about an hour before the raid began. Later, Erdogan would reveal in an interview that it was his brother-in-law who told him about the coup attempt, triggering a heated intelligence debate in Turkey.

The first reports of the uprising reached Turkish intelligence agency MIT in the early evening. It was information provided by a pilot at 14:45 local time. According to the pilot, a plot to kidnap Turkish intelligence agency MIT's chief Hakan Fidan would begin at 03:00 the next morning.

The intelligence was immediately shared with the Turkish Army (TSK). While a top-level meeting was held in the capital, Ankara, the plotters decided to go ahead with their plan before the scheduled time.

It was around 18:30 when the Turkish army was first ordered to act. Soldiers were asked to stay in the barracks and Turkish airspace was closed to traffic. However, these measures could not help prevent the plotters from taking Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar hostage or bombing the parliament building.

The question naturally remains: After having received intelligence, why did the Turkish army wait? Erdogan's own accounts indicate he was informed about the attempt sometime between 20:00 or 21.00. Why so long after the army was informed? One year after the coup attempt, these questions remain unanswered.

A group of solders being taken into custody in Ankara following the coup attempt on July 15, 2016

Intelligence debate: Could no one see it coming?

After the coup attempt, a heated debate raged regarding failures of intelligence. Many observers have asked how both the intelligence agency and the army could have been in the dark about such a plot. A parliamentary commission formed to investigate the coup attempt ended up with two contradictory answers.

The MIT intelligence agency says its powers are limited when it comes to gathering intelligence on army officers, citing it as the reason why it failed to pin down the date of such a plot. The Turkish army, on the other hand, claims it cannot track soldiers outside the barracks. Once they leave the military compounds, the army insists they are under MIT's jurisdiction.

With a blame game going on between MIT and TSK, another debate revolves around the Gulen movement's infiltration into the army.

The Turkish government considers the Gulen religious movement, named after exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, as an enemy of the state and a terrorist organization responsible for the coup attempt.

Yet in 2010, the Gulen movement was removed from a list of threats to national security known as "the Red Book" - the so-called "secret constitution" of the Turkish government. Between 2010 and 2015, dismissals of officers with links to the Gulen movement stopped. Why the government turned a blind eye to a growing Gulenist presence within the army for so long is among the questions left unanswered.

Support for Erdogan remains high despite massive crackdowns on freedoms of speech and the press

No questions asked

After the attempted coup, the Turkish parliament formed a commission in nine days to shed light onto the coup attempt. 141 key witnesses testified for a 637-page report written up over the ensuing five months. Those witnesses included former MIT and TSK chiefs.

However, key actors from the night in question - current MIT chief Hakan Fidan and Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar - did not testify in person before the commission. Akar was sent a list of 10 questions and Fidan presented a 38-page report instead. President Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim were not called to testify either.

What do we know about the plotters?

The junta in charge of the coup attempt was called the "Peace at Home Council". Turks heard of the name for the first time on July 15 after the state television TRT's reading of a coup statement.

Today what is known about the 38-member council is very little. Their ultimate plan if the coup had succeeded is a mystery. It is not known which figures would have taken over the offices of president and prime minister had the coup not been quashed.